This is why you should just buy it yourself. Public healthcare is great if it works, but there is no sense in putting off your life over 200 a month.
Somebody ought to riot
It's not much better in the US and there isn't a unified "gender clinic" to coordinate things. And travel for surgery and recovery is expensive, especially when most insurance doesn't pay for that and things are so spread out in the US, so most have no option or if near a major city are stuck with the one or two overbooked options close enough to them that they can get a ride to.
I had to travel to another major city to even get on a waiting list for my first surgery since in the major city where I live, the one clinic that has a surgeon was totally unresponsive on how long their waiting list was after taking my doctor's referral.
And I had to pay around $4,000 for a month at an AirBnB plus flights, food, and necessities we couldn't fit in the now strict 50lb weight limits on luggage for me and a care person. I couldn't bring a carry-on since I wouldn't be able to carry it on the way home and you can't put the heavier liquids in there anyway like soaps, shampoos, hair products, lotions, etc. And paid several thousand out of pocket to cover deductibles and coinsurance despite having the most expensive health plan my company offers which costs about $400 every other week from each paycheck despite the fact I work for said insurance company. And that was only one surgery.
Next surgery is a 1 year wait for a consult and no clue how many years before surgery and another one is at least a 3 year wait for consult and at least 4 year wait for surgery after the consult. I can't afford to travel again for those. Had to take out a home equity loan for the first one. And I still have to pay for the mental heath visits for the gatekeeping WPATH letters each time both for the consult and again for the surgery since they each expire after a year. I really wish there was someone to help coordinate it all. For example, if I end up with the waiting lists ending too close to each other I'll have to go back on the beginning of the list assuming the surgeon is still scheduling new surgeries because you can't get too many too close to each other and they're totally separate offices.
And traveling internationally is too dangerous right now with my passport being forced to be my birth gender and my genitals not matching for the x-ray, so unless things improve it is likely I'll be too old to get most of the surgeries by the time I get through the lists. I'm already starting later in life due to lack of care. Plus I need other small surgeries for some unrelated issues which I can't find providers for in my insurance network taking new patients and can't afford to schedule too far out, just in case I get to the top of the gender care surgery wait lists.
The gender clinic is where they get hormones.
I lucked out for surgery and was able to get it at 26 a city over with work insurance and it was a really hassle, but for all the difficulties here getting hormones in the US is actually way easier than most places.
Maybe gatekeeping doesn’t work.
maybe defunding healthcare more will help?
What do you mean? This system is working exactly as intended.